The present inventions relate generally to radio communication systems, and more particularly to methods and apparatuses for maintaining the integrity of mobile handset location determination in a radio communication system, and methods therefor.
Radio communication systems generally provide two-way voice and data communication between remote locations. Examples of such systems are cellular and personal communication system (PCS) radio systems, trunked radio systems, dispatch radio networks, and global mobile personal communication systems (GMPCS) such as satellite-based systems. Communication in these systems is conducted according to a pre-defined standard. Mobile stations, also known as handsets, portables or radiotelephones, conform to the system standard to communicate with one or more fixed base stations.
It is desirable to obtain and communicate physical locations of mobile stations within a system, such as radiotelephone handsets within a cellular system. In addition, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has required that cellular handsets must be geographically locatable by the year 2001. This capability is desirable for emergency systems such as Enhanced 911 (E911). The FCC requires stringent accuracy and availability performance objectives and demands that cellular handsets be locatable within 100 meters 67% of the time for network based solutions and within 50 meters 67% of the time for handset based solutions.
Further, with location information available for mobile stations, position-dependent services and messaging including advertising can be tailored to the handset user responsive to the location of the handset.
Current generations of radio communication have only limited mobile station location determination capability. In one technique, the position of the mobile station is determined by monitoring mobile station transmissions at several base stations. From time of arrival measurements, the mobile station's position can be calculated. However, the precision of this technique is limited and, at times, may be insufficient to meet FCC requirements.
In another technique, each mobile station is equipped with a receiver suitable for use with a global satellite navigation system such as the Global Positioning System (GPS). The construction and operation of receivers suitable for use with GPS are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,175,557 and 5,148,452, both of which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The GPS receiver detects transmissions from a constellation of GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. Using data and timing from the transmissions, the GPS receiver calculates the positions of the satellites and from those positions, its own position. A GPS satellite in orbit moves at about 4,000 meters per second. The satellite has location data defined by a parameter X(t) and velocity data defined by a parameter V(t). The parameters X(t) and V(t) are three-dimensional position and velocity vectors for this satellite and are referenced to an earth-centered, earth-fixed Cartesian coordinate system. The GPS system includes 24 satellites, several of which may be in view of the mobile station at any one time. Each satellite broadcasts data according to pre-defined standard formats and timings.
Traditionally, the satellite coordinates and velocity have been computed inside the GPS receiver. The receiver obtains satellite ephemeris and clock correction data by demodulating the satellite broadcast message stream. The satellite transmission contains more than 400 bits of data transmitted at 50 bits per second (bps). The constants contained in the ephemeris data coincide with Kepler orbit constants requiring many mathematical operations to turn the data into position and velocity data. In one implementation, this conversion requires 90 multiplies, 58 adds and 21 transcendental function cells (sin, cos, tan) in order to translate the ephemeris into a satellite position and velocity vector at a single point, for one satellite. Most of the computations require double precision, floating point processing. A receiver must perform this computation every second for every satellite, for up to twelve satellites.
Thus, the computational load for performing the traditional calculation is significant. The handset must include a high-level processor capable of the necessary calculations. Such processors are relatively expensive and consume large amounts of power. As a portable device for consumer use, a mobile station is preferably inexpensive and operates at very low power. These design goals are inconsistent with the high computational load required for GPS processing.
Further, the slow data rate from the GPS satellites is a limitation. GPS acquisition at a GPS receiver may take many seconds or several minutes, during which time the receiver circuit and processor of the mobile station must be continuously energized. Preferably, to maintain battery life in portable receivers and transceivers such as mobile cellular handsets, circuits are de-energized as much as possible. The long GPS acquisition time can rapidly deplete the battery of a mobile station. In any situation and particularly in emergency situations, the long GPS acquisition time is inconvenient.
In Assisted GPS (referred to as A-GPS), communications network and infrastructure are used to assist the mobile GPS receiver, either as a standalone device or integrated with a mobile station (MS). The basic idea of A-GPS is to establish a GPS reference network (or a wide-area DGPS network) whose receivers have clear views of the sky and can operate continuously. This reference network is also connected with the cellular infrastructure, and continuously monitors the real-time constellation status and provides precise data for each satellite at a particular epoch time. As one skilled in the art would recognize, the GPS reference receiver and its server (or position determination entity) could be located at any surveyed location with an open view of the sky so long as it can be linked to the network or co-located with another network node. For instance, the GPS server could be separated with the reference receiver and integrated with a network node. At the request of the mobile phone, network or location service clients, the assist data derived from the GPS reference network are transmitted via the communications network to the mobile phone GPS receiver to aid fast start-up, to increase the sensor sensitivity, and to reduce the power consumption. At least three modes of operations can be supported: “MS-assisted,” MS-based,” and “autonomous.” For MS-assisted GPS, the mobile receiver position is calculated at the network. Typically, the MS needs to receive the assistance data such as GPS time, Doppler and code phase search window, and to transmit pseudorange data back to the network. For MS-based GPS, the mobile receiver position is calculated at the handset. Typically, the MS needs to receive the assistance data such as GPS time, ephemeris and clock correction, and transmit the calculated position back if required. For autonomous GPS, its position is also calculated at the handset with very limited assistance from the network (or no assistance at all), which can also been very loosely classified under MS-based GPS. Typically, the receiver position is determined independently without network assistance.
For GPS applications, position errors are contributed by the satellite clock, satellite orbit, ephemeris prediction, ionospheric delay, tropospheric delay, and selective availability (SA). To reduce these errors, range and range-rate corrections can be applied to the raw pseudorange measurements in order to create a position solution that is accurate to a few meters in open environments. One such correction technique is differential GPS (DGPS). For MS-assisted GPS, corrections can be applied directly at the network or its GPS server to pseudorange and pseudorange rate received from the MS. For MS-based GPS, corrections must be transmitted to the mobile receiver either via “point-to-point” or “broadcast” (“point-to-multipoint”) mode. Note that A-GPS may operate with or without differential GPS corrections: the corrections are generally required for those applications with the most demanding accuracy requirements (e.g., E911).
The location accuracy of the three GPS modes of operation can degrade substantially when undetected GPS satellite failures are present: such failures, though rare, can render the positioning information derived by a mobile handset completely unusable. Although the GPS Control Segment monitors the health of the GPS satellites, this activity is not performed continuously, and may require more than 30 minutes to be communicated to GPS users. In addition, for A-GPS operating in a differential mode, unexpected multipath at the DGPS receiver surveyed site can lead to larger than nominal location errors, independent of the health of the GPS constellation.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method and apparatus to maintain the integrity of location determinations in a radio communication system.